Despite intractable militancy and ongoing theft from pipelines which has hobbled its oil production, Nigeria’s government remains resolutely upbeat over its plans to turn things around in 2017. Nigeria, which has been exempted from the OPEC deal to cut output from January, hopes to pull its economy out of recession on the back of the upswing in global crude prices and restore oil production to at least 2.2 million b/d, Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari said in early December. Negotiations with militants in the Niger Delta to end attacks on oil facilities are also progressing and a new funding scheme for upstream ventures with foreign partners was recently agreed. For now, Africa’s biggest oil producer continues to suffer from the oil price downturn as oil accounts for about 90% of its foreign exchange earnings and about 80% of the government’s total revenue. The Nigerian economy slipped further into recession in […]